Fritz Pfeffer

Fritz Pfeffer was born on 30 April 1889 in Giessen as the son of textile merchant Ignatz Pfeffer and Jeanette Hirsch.^[1] He had a sister and four brothers: Minna, Julius, Emil, Ernst and Hans.^[2]

After attending grammar school in his home town, he trained as a dentist at the University of Würzburg from 1908 to 1911.^[3][4] From 1913 to 1938 he had his own practice in Berlin-Charlottenburg.^[5]

During the First World War, he was a member of the 116th Infantry Regiment. The division to which this regiment belonged took part in the battles of Verdun and the Somme. Back in Berlin, he resumed his practice. He was also an active sportsman, and was particularly into rowing in the waters around Berlin.

In 1926, Pfeffer married Vera Henriette Bythiner, with whom he had a son named Werner in 1927. The marriage was dissolved in 1933.^[6] In the mid-1930s he met Charlotte Kaletta. They could not marry because by now the racist Nuremberg Laws were in effect. Part of this was a ban on marriages between Jews and non-Jewish Germans.

Pfeffer made an attempt to emigrate to the United Kingdom, but on 5 May 1937 his application for registration as a dentist was rejected by the General Medical Council (GMC) in London.^[7] His younger brother Ernst Pfeffer had made the same request a year and a half earlier and was admitted.^[8] After Kristallnacht (9-10 November 1938), Pfeffer came to the Netherlands. He wanted to go to Chile to work as a horse breeder. In June 1939 minister Goseling rejected his request to be allowed to stay in the Netherlands while awaiting a decision on this.^[9] A marriage to Charlotte Kaletta could not be arranged in the Netherlands either, as a treaty from 1902 required permission from the German government.^[10] Pfeffer investigated the possibility of marrying in another country, but since he had not held a valid passport since January 1939, that was out of the question.

Otto Frank first met Pfeffer in the spring of 1940. At that time, Pfeffer was living with Otto's childhood friend Stephanie Schuster.^[11] Later he moved into a room on the Bernard Zweerskade.^[12] Despite the denial of residence in the Netherlands, Pfeffer did not leave. Nor was he deported. He worked in the dental practice of Samuel van der Hoeden. In the autumn of 1942, the situation became dangerous for him, as he did not have the relatively safe status of a mixed marriage. Through the mediation of Miep Gies, who was a patient with him, he was able to move into the Secret Annex. He told his landlady that he had to go to the hospital for a kidney complaint and disappeared. Through Miep, he kept in touch with Charlotte Kaletta.^[13]

After the arrest on 4 August 1944, Pfeffer ended up in Westerbork. He was transported to Auschwitz on 3 September 1944. A camp survivor later stated that Pfeffer had left Auschwitz with a transport consisting of dentists and dental technicians to Neuengamme. There Fritz Pfeffer died at the age of 55, according to the death certificate as a result of an intestinal infection.^[14]

Source personal data.^[15]